


Real Estate

by Crowgirl



Series: Welcoming Silences [12]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fumbling Through, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4848401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Here. You’d...live here.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real Estate

‘I’m not selling my house!’

‘Well, letting it, then.’

‘No!’

‘Why not? You’re barely there as it is.’

‘Where would I _live?’_ Paul realises as soon as the words are out of his mouth that he’s said the wrong thing -- that if he had searched for days, he may not have been able to find something that was much _more_ wrong.

Foyle’s face doesn’t fall -- it _locks,_ as if Paul had reached out and struck him. ‘Here.’ His tone isn’t any different but he sounds hollow, like the strength has been taken out of it. ‘You’d...live here.’

‘Christopher, I--’ Paul stretches a hand towards him, realizes the bookshelf they’d been moving is inconveniently in the way, and starts to scramble around it.

‘Which...I thought you did. Already.’ Foyle pauses, pulling on the corner of his lower lip hard enough to turn the skin white. ‘But...perhaps I misunderstood.’ 

‘Christopher--’ The corner of the bookcase is jammed in the inner angle of the open door and Paul can’t yank it out of the way.

Foyle looks down at the bookcase, although it’s clear to Paul he isn’t seeing it. ‘I’ll get the back for this.’ He turns away and disappears back down the hallway.

‘It’s right here -- we moved it first -- _Chris,--’_ Paul steps back, braces himself, and shoves the bookcase to the other side of the doorway, leaving himself just about enough room to wriggle past.

Tweed, their half-grown kitten, has gotten bored exploring the empty space in the front room where the bookcase used to be and comes nuzzling around his ankles. ‘Not right now, Twee...’ He nudges her aside with the edge of his foot and hurries down the hallway. ‘Christopher, I didn’t mean it like that--’ 

Of course he lives here -- _of course_ he does, how could he have said something so patently _stupid._ He hasn’t spent a night in “his” house for six months -- it’s really just storage for winter clothes he hasn’t needed yet and some things of Jane’s she hadn’t picked up in March. 

Tweed follows him down the hall, meowing in a vague kind of way.

Of course he lives here -- his clothes, his books, his teapot, his cat -- _their_ cat -- they’re all _here._

Paul stops at the open door of the spare room. The room looks out over the street, curtained windows blocking out most of the late afternoon sun. It’s nominally his -- as Foyle’s lodger, on paper at least, this is one of the two rooms he rents. Moving the bookshelf between here and the other room that had been Andrew’s bedroom and is now something between a study and a bedroom had been a concession to the growing number of Paul’s books, already overflowing the single tall, narrow case by the bed. 

In reality, Paul thinks he has perhaps slept a week’s worth of nights in that bed -- perhaps a few more. Once, last month, when Foyle was out of town for a night and his bed-- No, their _shared_ bed had felt too large without him. Tweed hadn’t approved of the move at all; there wasn’t room for her to steal half of Paul’s pillow on the narrower bed. She had settled for sleeping on his discarded jumper on the chair across the room and glaring resentfully at him every time he moved.

Foyle is sitting in the armchair looking at the bare, wide sill below the curtained windows. The blackout curtains are looped aside and pinned back out of the way, leaving only the nearly transparent panels to filter the daylight. It’s had been a clear day but now, towards evening, clouds are coming up and the room is getting dimmer and dimmer. It seems cold even though it isn’t.

His _lover_ is here. How the hell had he not seen that he lives _here?_

‘Christopher, I’m sorry.’ Paul pads into the room but stops a few steps away from the chair. ‘I didn’t think.’

Foyle is silent for a long moment. Then he sighs and rubs a hand back over his head. ‘I understand if you want to keep the house--’

‘I don’t.’ Paul pulls up the only other chair, an uncushioned wooden relic from the kitchen, and sits down opposite Foyle, their knees almost touching. ‘I don’t want to live there. I _don't_ live there.’

Foyle glances up at him and then past him out the window. ‘If you want to have it as -- as a...’ He flounders, uncharacteristically stuck for a word and sighs again. ‘I understand--’

‘I don’t.’ Paul catches Foyle’s gesturing hand, sliding their fingers together. ‘I _don’t_ \-- it isn’t -- that isn’t what I meant, I just wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry. I live here -- of course, I live here.’ Paul waves his free hand around generally, indicating the walls around them. 

Tweed sits down between them on the bare floor and looks up at them thoughtfully, then leaps onto the chair arm beside Foyle and nudges at his elbow, butting him with her head until he gives in and lets her onto his lap.

‘Unless...’ Paul hesitates and swallows against what he tells himself is foolish fear. ‘If...if you--’

‘Don’t be a fool.’ Foyle’s voice isn’t sharp and his glance is warm when he looks up. ‘Do you think I air out my best winter comforter for all my houseguests?’


End file.
